Crash closes Auckland's Victoria Park tunnel

A toppled truck blocks all three lanes of the Victoria Park Tunnel entrance.

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A truck which rolled at the entrance to Auckland's Victoria Park Tunnel, injuring two people and leaving the city facing extensive gridlock, has now been cleared.

The tunnel feeds northbound traffic onto the Auckland harbour bridge and to the North Shore.

Police said the truck appeared to have lost control coming down the Wellington St on-ramp onto the motorway, crashed into a stationary car and then rolled, blocking all three northbound lanes of State Highway 1.

The crash happened at 12.51pm with both drivers later taken to hospital with moderate injuries.

NZTA said at 3.30pm the truck had been cleared and the motorway was open. It was expected to take some time to clear the backlog of traffic which, at one stage, had caused traffic to back up to near Penrose.

Tweets and eyewitness reports at the time of the crash said dozens of vehicles were unable to get off the motorway and people been getting out of their cars and walking on the road.

The tunnel opened to traffic in November last year. It was designed to take the northbound lanes of the southern motorway through to the harbour bridge while the southbound lanes now run across the original Victoria Park viaduct.